How did a fearless young Leeds United side reach the brink of a Champions League final — only for the dream to become one of English football’s greatest cautionary tales?
Season 5 of By Far The Greatest Team continues with the extraordinary rise and fall of Leeds United between 1998 and 2002.
Graham Dunn and Jamie Rooney are joined by returning guest South Coast Jamie to revisit a team that combined academy graduates, expensive recruits, thrilling European adventures and increasingly dangerous financial ambition.
The story begins with an incident that could have changed everything.
In March 1998, a plane carrying the Leeds squad suffered an engine fire and crash-landed at Stansted Airport. The players and staff escaped with only minor injuries, but among those on board was assistant manager David O’Leary.
Seven months later, following George Graham’s departure for Tottenham Hotspur, O’Leary was unexpectedly placed in charge of one of England’s biggest clubs.
A rookie manager inherited Graham’s strong defensive foundations but quickly released the handbrake. O’Leary trusted the club’s emerging youngsters, encouraged a more adventurous style and began referring to Jonathan Woodgate, Ian Harte, Harry Kewell, Alan Smith and Stephen McPhail as his “babies”.
Alongside established figures including Nigel Martyn, Gary Kelly, Lucas Radebe, David Batty and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, they carried Leeds to fourth place during O’Leary’s first season.
This was only the beginning.
Leeds finished third in 1999–2000 and reached the UEFA Cup semi-finals, eliminating Roma, Lokomotiv Moscow, Slavia Prague and Deportivo La Coruña along the way.
Qualification for the Champions League encouraged chairman Peter Ridsdale to accelerate his plans.
Rio Ferdinand arrived for a British-record transfer fee, while Mark Viduka, Olivier Dacourt, Dominic Matteo, Robbie Keane, Robbie Fowler and Seth Johnson formed part of an increasingly expensive squad.
For a while, it appeared to be working.
During the 2000–01 Champions League, O’Leary’s young side survived a group containing Barcelona, AC Milan and Beşiktaş before facing Real Madrid, Lazio and Anderlecht. They then defeated Deportivo La Coruña to reach the semi-finals, where Valencia finally ended their extraordinary journey.
Leeds had gone from UEFA Cup outsiders to the last four of the Champions League in successive seasons. Elland Road believed it was witnessing the beginning of something special.
But the club was spending money on the assumption that Champions League qualification would continue.
When Leeds finished fifth in 2001–02, the financial structure began to unravel. O’Leary was dismissed, Rio Ferdinand was sold to Manchester United and a squad assembled to challenge Europe’s elite started to be dismantled.
The phrase “living the dream” would come to define the aftermath — but was this simply reckless ownership, or a calculated gamble that came remarkably close to succeeding?
The episode also examines the troubling events surrounding the court case involving Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate, the club’s handling of the situation and O’Leary’s decision to publish Leeds United on Trial.
Along the way, the trio explore some classic football-history rabbit holes — including the truth behind the Seth Johnson contract story, the scale of Leeds’ transfer spending and whether the club would even have been relegated in 2004 under Argentina’s three-season averaging system.
The final question is particularly difficult.
Leeds won no trophies during this period, yet recorded four successive top-five finishes, reached two European semi-finals and competed fearlessly against some of the finest teams in the world.
Was this genuine greatness, borrowed greatness or simply a wonderful young team carrying a financial risk it could never possibly understand?
🔑 Takeaways
Join Us
Subscribe to By Far The Greatest Team wherever you get your podcasts and head over to our YouTube channel, where you can watch the show and discover additional football-history rabbit holes linked to the teams and personalities we cover.
Visit the By Far The Greatest Team website for accompanying stories, articles, typical starting XIs and the growing Greatness Index — our attempt to answer football’s most enjoyable question with a little more evidence:
How great were they?
If you enjoy these podcasts, please don’t forget to subscribe, leave us a rating and tell everyone about them!
If you enjoy these podcasts, please don't forget to subscribe and give us a rating and also tell everyone about them!
